


my applejack, my silent night

by QuietLittleVoices



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, M/M, sleep problems, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/QuietLittleVoices
Summary: “This is the worst part,” Jack admitted finally. “The… the just not sleeping. Fighting for it, because for most people sleep is the most natural thing - it’s so easy, it’s something that just happens and I can’t even do that right!” He clenched his fist tight next to him on the bed and raised it up, letting it bounce on the mattress lightly. “I know I should be easier on myself, but fuck!” He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. He could feel Sammy watching him, quietly concerned while he waited for Jack to finish. “It’s like - I can act like a real person most of the time, I’ve figured it all out, but I can’t sleep. It’s been months and I just - I just want to sleep.”





	my applejack, my silent night

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this is 100% projecting. i apologize for nothing. personal life rambles in the end notes.
> 
> Anyway, for semi-normal a/n stuff: please comment if you do like this purely projection fic? And for people invested in my X Files au.. i'm tryin'. I'm working on something I just wanna make it good.

Jack woke up in pain. He was surprised for a second that he woke up at all, and then he registered the weight on him. Instinct kicked in and he tried to push himself away. 

“Jack,” Sammy’s voice said from above him, and oh, yeah - he’s home. 

Jack swallowed and tasted blood. He must have been screaming but he didn’t remember it, or the dream before it. If he tried to think about it, he could capture the twisting fog in his mind. He didn’t try to think about it. 

He knew already that Sammy was lying on top of him. It wasn’t how they’d gone to sleep, Jack knew that - the feel of Sammy’s arms around him helped fend off some of the lesser… problems - so he must’ve been flailing, too. 

“Sorry,” he said hoarsely, finally opening his eyes and looking at Sammy. 

Jack wasn’t used to how tired Sammy looked all the time yet, but he was sure that Sammy felt the same way about him. Sammy’s body went lax against his, no longer pinning him down deliberately but still keeping him in place. “S’okay,” he murmured. “Can you get back to sleep?”

Jack closed his eyes and tried to relax back into the pillow. It wasn’t completely dark - nowhere in their house was; every room had at least one nightlight - but it was better that way. He pulled his arms out from under Sammy and wrapped them around him, feeling Sammy settle in against him. “No,” he answered. “I’ll just relax.”

Sammy just hummed and his breathing evened out, which spoke to how tired he was. Most nights, if Jack said he wouldn’t be going back to sleep, Sammy would try to stay up with him and make them coffee or just lie in bed together. The acknowledgement of being awake wasn’t always what Jack wanted, though. He wanted to be able to pretend he was sleeping, pretend he was normal, so the nights when Sammy was exhausted and just fell asleep against him where sometimes the best. 

Sometimes he did need coffee, sometimes he needed to be able to talk to Sammy quietly in the dusk of the room, but most nights he just wanted to pretend. 

He matched his breathing to Sammy’s - in and out at the same time, slow and even. It was a long time before he felt himself starting to drift, but when finally his body started to fall away he heard a distant shuffling that sounded like it was coming from under their bed and he jerked awake, jostling Sammy slightly but not waking him. Jack took a few deep breaths to try and even out his breathing and focused on Sammy’s heartbeat, hoping it would help slow his own down. 

Jack didn’t fall back asleep before Sammy’s alarm went off and Sammy grumbled himself into consciousness. 

“Good morning,” Sammy said gruffly, rolling over to lay on his back. “Did you sleep?”

Jack didn’t say anything, just laid there looking at Sammy, illuminated only by the nightlight. He reached over and pushed some of Sammy’s messy hair out of his face - it was longer now than it ever had been before; he’d always kept it fairly short, but Jack knew that he had wanted to grow it out.

“I’ll take that as a  _ no _ ,” Sammy murmured, reaching up to capture Jack’s hand in his own. 

Jack leaned forward and kissed him quickly, ignoring the taste of morning breath. “It’s time for you to get to work,” he replied, ignoring the question. 

Sammy groaned and reluctantly let go of Jack’s hand, pushing himself up and out of bed. 

They already had a regular routine, less than a year after Jack had finally gotten home. Jack listened to the sound of Sammy showering and then when he was done, he got out of bed without bothering changing from pyjamas. Sammy then drove them to either Emily’s apartment, where he dropped off Jack and picked Ben up for work, or Ben’s, where the same thing happened but then Emily took herself and Jack back to her house.

Sometimes Emily went back to sleep, and Jack would occupy himself and put on the radio to listen to Sammy and Ben. She didn’t do that too often, though, and most nights they stayed up together, listening to the radio or watching movies. There’d been new Star Wars movies and episodes of The X-Files in the time he’d been gone, along with countless other things, so it wasn’t looking like they’d ever run out of content to watch in the last half of the night. Emily told him that one of the things that had bothered her, after the major health and life concerns had been sorted, was that she’d just  _ missed out _ on so much - from the lives of her friends and family to the world at large. 

“No one understood that I  _ still _ had catching up to do,” Emily told him. “But it did matter - people make jokes and references to things all the time and they don’t think about it, but I was missing the context. And it just felt like I was being… pushed out.”

Jack nodded. He did understand - he’d been gone for so long and so many things had changed. Things that people hadn’t deemed important enough to include in the welcome package, or had become so common to them that they hadn’t realized he would still need to be told. Movies, music, politics, the rise and fall of something called ‘vine’ - there was too much to understand at once.

 

There are nights when everything is okay. Jack falls asleep next to Sammy as easily as he does, which is still longer than it takes Sammy to pass out next to him but shorter than normal. It should be perfect, but then - something. Always something, the sounds of the world around them, the house settling, hell - sometimes, it’s the sound of Sammy’s breathing. Something always startles him back into wakefulness. 

Sometimes, like tonight, Sammy will seem to realize something’s wrong without even waking up and will reach toward Jack, and Jack let himself be pulled in. He tried to go back to sleep and couldn’t, and eventually Sammy’s alarm went off.

“Good morning,” Sammy muttered before even opening his eyes. “Did you sleep?”

“No,” Jack replied quietly. 

Sammy opened his eyes and frowned. “I’m sorry. Was something wrong? Did I -”

Jack shook his head. “No, just - just woke up, couldn’t sleep. It’s okay.”

“You know you can tell me anything,” Sammy said earnestly, and it would have been sweet if it weren’t the sixteenth consecutive day that he’d said it.

Jack shoved at Sammy’s shoulder weakly, not actually trying to move him away. “I know. I just - it’s just stupid. I didn’t sleep, it’s fine - maybe I’ll nap later.”

Sammy gives him a skeptical look because they both know that he won’t. “I want to hear, even if it’s stupid.”

Jack knew that if he pressed the issue - told Sammy he didn’t want to talk about it, just flat out refused - then Sammy would let it go. Sammy wasn’t going to try and push him to say or do anything he wasn’t a hundred percent certain of. Jack appreciated it but it was times like this when he wished Sammy would just  _ push _ a little more.

“This is the worst part,” Jack admitted finally. “The… the just not sleeping. Fighting for it, because for most people sleep is the most natural thing - it’s so easy, it’s something that just  _ happens  _ and I can’t even do that right!” He clenched his fist tight next to him on the bed and raised it up, letting it bounce on the mattress lightly. “I know I should be easier on myself, but  _ fuck _ !” He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. He could feel Sammy watching him, quietly concerned while he waited for Jack to finish. “It’s like - I can act like a real person most of the time, I’ve figured it all out, but I can’t sleep. It’s been months and I just - I just want to sleep.”

Sammy tightened his arms around Jack. “If you can ever think of anything I can do to help, please tell me,” he said quietly. “I wish there was  _ more _ I could do… I don’t want you to be hurting like this.”

“I wish that, too,” Jack replied, almost lightly. “I’m not mad at you,” he added. “You help so much - the only reason I can sleep at all is because you’re here.”

Sammy was quiet for a beat. “Then I’ll try to be here as often as I can,” he said. “But right now, I have to get to work.”

Jack smiled at him and reached up for a kiss. “Let’s get going, then.”

 

Jack said the worst thing was the difficulty, the not being able to sleep of it, and it was - but there was also the inconsistency. If every night Jack knew he’d wake up screaming and thrashing because of a nightmare, he could prepare for that. If every night he knew he would wake up from some tiny noise, he could prepare for that. The problem was the not knowing what to prepare for - insomnia, restlessness, nightmares, the unquiet of his own brain.

And some nights, when he was trying to fall asleep, at the moment he was just about to finally slip away, he’d hear it.

_ Jack _ .

A not-voice in the darkness, not his or Sammy’s or any voice he could really recognize because it was inside his own head.

_ Come back _ , the not-voice said, and Jack rolled over to turn on the bedside lamp. There were nightlights, but they didn’t illuminate the whole room very well. Even the bedside lamp left pockets in the corners, shadows of their dirty clothes set in relief on the wall, and as Jack watched they started to form together until he could almost see a figure in the doorway.

_ Jack _ , repeated the not-voice.

Jack shook his head but he could still almost see the figure in the doorway, not moving. It loomed up, filling the space, almost bending over to fit under the ceiling, and Jack knew that it wasn’t really there.

If he concentrated, he could see past the figure. It wasn’t a physical thing, even as much as the Shadowmaker and the Void had been physical - it wasn’t anything. Those things were finished, they couldn’t come back to bother them, but Jack was still seeing visions out of the corners of his eyes. Seeing them head on at night. 

Sammy rolled over to face Jack’s side of the bed and was bothered by the light, and Jack watched as he was pulled awake. He felt bad about it because he knew that even though Sammy slept more than he did, he set a low bar, but if Sammy was awake then the not-voice couldn’t keep forming and the figure that Jack could still almost see would go away. Because they weren’t real, Jack knew that they weren’t real, but it was only with Sammy that he could make his brain understand that.

“What’s wrong?” Sammy grumbled, turning his face back into his pillow. 

Jack took a deep breath but didn’t answer, waiting until the figure dispersed and was just normal shadow again before he turned off the bedside light. “Sorry,” he murmured, laying back down.

“S’okay. Talk about it?” Sammy opened one eye, the other still buried in the pillow, and Jack couldn’t help but smile at how domestic the whole thing was.

He shook his head. “Not right now. Sleep.”

Sammy nodded and let out a breath, letting his shoulders relax again. “Love you,” he said quietly.

“Love you, too,” Jack replied, and he fell asleep easily.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i had a sleep study last night and i'm still waiting on the results (obviously) but it's not looking like i'll get answers so we're back to the drawing board. I basically gave jack all of my #issues and that's what this fic is. His are slightly worse than mine but not by all that much.


End file.
